WeChat users in the U.S. are once again in court in a bid to block the Trump administration’s ban on WeChat from the U.S. before it takes effect on Sunday. A California judge has refused to block an injunction issued Friday by the U.S. Commerce Department that would ban U.S. app stores from offering to download Tencent Holdings’ services starting late Sunday.
WeChat users in the U.S. have renewed their bid in court to block Trump’s ban, the Lianhe Zaobao reported today. According to Bloomberg, a coalition of U.S. WeChat users has renewed its attempt to block the administration’s executive order on the orders of a San Francisco judge. This comes after the U.S. Department of Commerce issued instructions Friday on what transactions will be banned. The judge will consider the coalition’s arguments in a hearing Saturday at 1:30 p.m. local time, California time.
The Commerce Department said it will ban cash transfers in the United States related to WeChat and its parent company Tencent starting Sunday, and will prohibit the app from obtaining technical services from vendors, in addition to banning downloads of the app. But the government said users would not be penalized for personal and business communications. A U.S. magistrate judge previously said the WeChat user group’s bid to block Trump’s ban on the grounds that it was too vague was moot, as authorities updated the executive order with more details.
The WeChat Users Coalition argued in Friday’s court filing that the Commerce Department’s interpretation of the ban does not address the issues it raises. The group said: “The directive issued by the Commerce Department does exactly the opposite: the scope of the ban remains unclear and lacks qualifiers and warnings, so users will be correspondingly concerned that their behavior will be prohibited.”
According to the Trump administration, the ban is motivated by national security concerns about the Chinese government’s ability to access data through the app. In Friday’s court filing, lawyers representing the U.S. government cited an op-ed published Thursday in The New York Times that said China’s plans for WeChat and other apps are even “more sinister” than Trump believes.
According to the WeChat Users Alliance, Trump’s order was driven by election-year politics. What we feared has already happened,” the group said in a statement. Despite the U.S. Department of Justice providing public assurances to the court on Wednesday that it would not affect individual users, the U.S. government is still banning WeChat altogether.”
According to Reuters, a judge in California refused to block an injunction issued by the U.S. Commerce Department on Friday that would have barred U.S. app stores from offering to download Tencent Holdings’ WeChat service starting late Sunday. According to Judge Laurel Beeler, the preliminary injunction sought in a lawsuit filed by U.S. WeChat users appeared moot after the Commerce Department’s order, but he said in a written order that “the court may hold a hearing today on any emergency motions.”
There is no word on whether WeChat users filing a lawsuit will file emergency motions.
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